PS 279: American Bureaucratic Politics

Transcription

1 PS 279: American Bureaucratic Politics Prof. Sean Gailmard Dept. of Political Science 734 Barrows Tel: Spring 2008 UC Berkeley Location: 791 Barrows Time: T 11:00 1:00 Office hours: Th 11:00 1:00 Bureaucracy is the institution in which the inchoate policy pronouncements of Congress take concrete form. In addition, even a policy clearly articulated by Congress is usually implemented by bureaucrats. The reach of the bureaucracy in public policy is necessarily vast, so it is no surprise that Congress, the president, courts, and interest groups all seek influence over bureaucracies. Moreover, bureaucrats and regulators are very rarely elected in the United States (not at all at the federal level) and are insulated by civil service protection from the political demands voiced by Congress, so the democratic pedigree of bureaucratic decisions is at least questionable. Because of these facts, the role of the bureaucracy in policy formulation and implementation poses interesting positive and normative questions about the functioning of American political institutions, their effects on policy, and their capacity to recognize, address, and solve public problems. Correspondingly, bureaucratic politics has been a fertile area of research on American political institutions. This seminar provides an overview of this literature, the major substantive issues covered in the American institutions literature on bureaucratic politics, and the theoretical and empirical tools commonly used by contributors to it. The goals of the seminar are to enable graduate students to contribute to this and related literatures themselves, and to make sense of the structures and activities that characterize bureaucracies involvement in the policy process. A Note on Course Background: This is not a class on formal modeling. Nevertheless an important part of the literature on the course topic employs formal models and, in contrast to statistical modeling, we cannot assume a general background fluency with these models. Therefore the first three sessions of the course will consist largely of lectures to establish a foundation to make these models intelligible. This treatment will be entirely self-contained and you will not have to execute any modeling of your own to penetrate the literature, though it does help. You will have to be able to understand and critique the arguments made in formal models. Simultaneously, much contemporary literature theorizes about structures and goings-on in bureaucracies without explaining any background on what they are, or giving only a highly abstract gloss. Yet neither the newspaper, nor undergraduate training, nor everyday experience typically provides any comprehensive treatment of the bureaucratic substance underlying this theorizing. Therefore, to supply needed substantive background for the remainder of the course, readings for the first three weeks will consist of relatively thick substantive accounts of bureaucratic behavior at various levels. We will not have explicit seminar discussion devoted to these readings at the time they occur, but you should cover them in your written weekly critiques (see below on grades).

2 PS 279: American Bureaucratic Politics 2 Reading There are three types of required reading: books, book excerpts in a course readings packet (available at Copy Central on Bancroft), and journal articles which are available electronically. The source for reach reading is listed on the sequence of topics below. The required books which you should purchase are: Martha Feldman Order without Design: Information Production and Policy Making. Palo Alto: Stanford Herbert Kaufman The Administrative Behavior of Federal Bureau Chiefs. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Marc Allen Eisner Regulatory Politics in Transition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Daniel Carpenter, The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy, Princeton University Press David Epstein and Sharyn O Halloran Delegating Powers. New York: Cambridge University John Huber and Charles Shipan Deliberate Discretion. New York: Cambridge University David Lewis Presidents and the Politics of Agency Design. Palo Alto: Stanford University Other books listed are optional; they have not been ordered for the course but you can purchase them from your favorite bookstore if you wish to read them. Grades The seminar grade will be determined as follows: Participation 25% Written critiques 25% Research paper 50% Students must submit written 1-2 page critiques and comments on each week s readings. They may be critical or supportive or both. They may consist of questions for clarification, counterarguments against the claim advanced in the reading, critiques of the evidence and/or theory offered, and so forth. What they should not consist of is either simple summary or unreflective diatribe. 1 The research paper should develop an original argument about bureaucratic politics or significant critique of the literature on some aspect of it. It need not fall under any of the categories listed in the sequence of topics; you can go in any direction you wish. It is also completely open with respect to methodology. It should be at least 20 pages in length. Further guidance will be provided during the semester. 1 Reflective diatribes are of course welcome.

3 PS 279: American Bureaucratic Politics 3 Sequence of Topics and Readings Note: Req designates required reading. Supp designates supplementary (optional) reading. All readings in the course packet are designated as such. All others are either required books or available electronically (JSTOR or Berkeley library web). Part I: Formal and Substantive Background Session 1 Introduction and Overview; Spatial Model Req. Martha Feldman Order without Design: Information Production and Policy Making. Palo Alto: Stanford Req. Jonathan Bendor and Adam Meirowitz Spatial Models of Delegation. American Political Science Review 98(2): Session 2 Principal-Agent Models Req. Course Reader Patrick Bolton and Mathias Dewatripont Contract Theory. Boston: MIT Pp. 1-43, , Req. Course Reader Allan Drazen Political Economy in Macroeconomics. Princeton: Princeton Pp Req. Herbert Kaufman The Administrative Behavior of Federal Bureau Chiefs. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Req. Philippe Aghion and Jean Tirole Formal and Real Authority in Organizations. Journal of Political Economy 105(1): Session 3 Information Transmission in Agency Relationships Req. Course Reader. Paul Milgrom and John Roberts Economics, Organization, and Management. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Pp , Req. Course Reader. Stephen Breyer, Matthew Spitzer, Richard Stewart, and Cass Sunstein Administrative Law and Regulatory Policy. Aspen Publishers. Pp Req. Course Reader. Alfred Aman Administrative Law. West Publishing Company. Pp Req. Marc Allen Eisner Regulatory Politics in Transition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Req. Vincent Crawford and Joel Sobel Strategic Information Transmission. Econometrica 50(6): Supp. Wouter Dessein Authority and Communication in Organizations. Review of Economic Studies 69(4):

4 PS 279: American Bureaucratic Politics 4 Part II: Bureaucratic Structure Session 4 Political Origins of Bureaucratic Structure Req. Course Reader Terry Moe The Politics of Bureaucratic Structure. In Can the Government Govern? (Chubb and Peterson, eds.). Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Pp Req. McNollgast Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control. Journal Of Law, Economics, and Organization 3(2): Req. Michael Ting A Theory of Jurisdictional Assignments in Bureaucracy. American Journal of Political Science 46(2): Req. Rui DeFigueiredo Electoral Competition, Political Uncertainty, and Policy Insulation. American Political Science Review 96(2): Supp. McNollgast The Political Origins of the Administrative Procedure Act. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 15(1): Session 5 Information Transmission and Bureaucratic Structure Req. Course Reader. Murray Horn The Political Economy of Public Administration. New York: Cambridge Pp Req. Kathleen Bawn Political Control versus Expertise: Congressional Choices about Administrative Procedures. American Political Science Review 89(1): Req. Rui DeFigueiredo, Pablo Spiller, and Santiago Urbiztondo An Informational Perspective on Administrative Procedures. Journal Of Law, Economics, and Organization 15(1): Supp. Sean Gailmard and John Patty Separation of Powers, Information, and Bureaucratic Structure. Draft, UC Berkeley. Session 6 Effects of Bureaucratic Structure Req. David Lewis The Politics of Presidential Appointments. New York: Cambridge PDF version will be distributed. Req. Canice Prendergast The Limits of Bureaucratic Efficiency. Journal of Political Economy 111(5): Req. Sean Gailmard and John Patty Slackers and Zealots: Civil Service, Policy Discretion, and Bureaucratic Expertise. American Journal of Political Science 51(4):

5 PS 279: American Bureaucratic Politics 5 Part III: Bureaucratic Behavior Session 7 Bureaucratic Preferences and Decision-Making Req. C.F. Larry Heimann Understanding the Challenger Disaster: Organizational Structure and the Design of Reliable Systems. American Political Science Review 87: Req. Bendor, Jonathan A Model of Muddling Through. American Political Science Review 89(4): Req. Daniel Carpenter Adaptive Signal Processing, Hierarchy, and Budgetary Control in Federal Regulation. American Political Science Review 90(2): Req. Canice Prendergast The Motivation and Bias of Bureaucrats. American Economic Review 97(1). Req. Joshua Clinton and David Lewis Expert Opinion, Agency Characteristics, and Agency Preference. Political Analysis forthcoming. Supp. Marissa Martino Golden What Motivates Bureaucrats? New York: Columbia Supp. Daniel McFadden The Revealed Preferences of a Government Bureaucracy: Empirical Evidence. Bell Journal of Economics 7(1): Supp. David C. Nixon Separation of Powers and Appointee Ideology. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 20(2): Supp. Keith Brown and Adam Candeub What Do Bureaucrats Want: Estimating Regulator Preferences at the FCC. Draft. Supp. Jonathan Bendor and Sunil Kumar The Perfect is the Enemy of the Best: Adaptive versus Optimal Organizational Reliability. Journal of Theoretical Politics 17(1): Session 8 Agency Response to Incentives Req. James Heckman, Jeff Smith, and Christopher Taber What Do Bureaucrats Do? The Effects of Performance Standards and Bureaucratic Preferences on Acceptance into the JTPA Program. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper. Req. Gerald Marschke and Pascal Courty Measuring Government Performance: Lessons from a Federal Bureaucracy. American Economic Review (Papers and Proceedings) 87(2): Req. James Heckman, Carolyn Heinrich, and Jeffrey Smith The Performance of Performance Standards. Journal of Human Resources 37(4): Req. Avinash Dixit Incentives and Organizations in the Public Sector: An Interpretative Review. Journal of Human Resources 37(4): Session 9 Coalition and Empire Building Req. Daniel Carpenter, The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy, Princeton University Press Req. Samuel Kernell Rural service delivery as a critical test of alternative models of American political development. Studies in American Political Development 15: Req. Daniel Carpenter The Political Foundations of Bureaucratic Autonomy: A Response to Kernell. Studies in American Political Development 15:

6 PS 279: American Bureaucratic Politics 6 Part IV: Bureaucracy and External Actors Session 10 Congress I Req. Course Reader. John Huber and Charles Shipan, Delegation. In Oxford Handbook of Political Economy (Weingast and Whitman, eds.). Oxford: Oxford Pp Req. David Epstein and Sharyn O Halloran Delegating Powers. New York: Cambridge Req. John Huber and Charles Shipan Deliberate Discretion. New York: Cambridge Supp. Sean Gailmard Expertise, Subversion, and Bureaucratic Discretion. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 18(2). Supp. John Huber and Nolan McCarty. Bureaucratic capacity, delegation, and political reform. American Political Science Review 98(3): Supp. Sean Gailmard Discretion Rather than Rules: Legislative Choice of Instruments to Control Bureaucratic Policy-making. Political Analysis forthcoming. Session 11 Congress II Req. Barry Weingast and Mark Moran Bureaucratic Discretion or Congressional Control? Regulatory Policy-making by the FTC. Journal of Political Economy 91(5): Req. Mathew McCubbins and Thomas Schwartz Congressional Oversight Overlooked? Police Patrols or Fire Alarms. American Journal of Political Science 28(1): Req. Terry Moe An Assessment of the Positive Theory of Congressional Dominance. Legislative Studies Quarterly 12(4): Req. Charles Shipan Regulatory Regimes, Agency Actions, and the Conditional Nature of Congressional Influence. American Political Science Review 98(3): Supp. Joel Aberbach Keeping a Watchful Eye. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Supp. John Ferejohn and Charles Shipan Congressional Influence on Bureaucracy. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 6(3): Supp. Bawn, Kathleen Choosing Strategies to Control the Bureaucracy: Statutory Constraints, Oversight, and the Committee System. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 13(1): Supp. Alberto Alesina and Guido Tabellini Bureaucrats or Politicians I: A Single Policy Task, American Economic Review. Session 12 The President Req. Course Reader. Terry Moe The Politicized Presidency. In The New Direction in American Politics (Chubb and Peterson, eds.). Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. Pp Req. David Lewis Presidents and the Politics of Agency Design. Palo Alto: Stanford Req. Terry Moe Control and Feedback in Economic Regulation: The Case of the NLRB. American Political Science Review 79(4): Supp. Terry Moe Regulatory Performance and Presidential Administration. American Journal of Political Science 26(2): , and Erratum, 1983, 27(1): 165. Supp. Joseph Cooper and William F. West Presidential Power and Republican Government: The Theory and Practice of OMB Review of Agency Rules. Journal of Politics 50(4):

7 PS 279: American Bureaucratic Politics 7 Session 13 Courts Req. Course Reader. Alfred Aman, Administrative Law. Pp Req. Brandice Canes-Wrone Bureaucratic Behavior and the Composition of Lower Courts. American Journal of Political Science 47(2): Req. Ethan Bueno de Mesquita and Matthew Stephenson Regulatory Quality under Imperfect Oversight. American Political Science Review 101(3): Supp. Wendy L Hansen., Renee J. Johnson, and Issac Unah Specialized Courts, Bureaucratic Agencies, and the Politics of U.S. Trade Policy. American Journal of Political Science 39: Supp. Spriggs, James Explaining Federal Bureaucratic Compliance with Supreme Court Opinions. Political Research Quarterly 50: Supp. Matthew Stephenson A Costly Signaling Interpretation of the Hard Look Doctrine. Administrative Law Review. Session 14 Interest Groups Req. Daniel Carpenter Protection without Capture. American Political Science Review 98(4): Req. Sanford Gordon and Catherine Hafer Flexing Muscle: Corporate Political Expenditures as Signals to the Bureaucracy. American Political Science Review 99(2): Req. Jason Webb-Yackee and Susan Webb-Yackee A Bias Toward Business? Assessing Interest Group Influence on the Bureaucracy. Journal of Politics 68(1). Supp. Marissa Martino Golden Interest Groups in the Rulemaking Process: Who Participates? Whose Voices Get Heard? Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 8. Supp. Balla, Steven J. and John R. Wright Interest Groups, Advisory Committees, and Congressional Control of the Bureaucracy. American Journal of Political Science 45: Supp. Scott Furlong and Cornelius Kerwin Interest Group Participation in Rulemaking: A Decade of Change. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 15(3): Supp. Frederick Boehmke, Sean Gailmard, and John Patty Whose Ear to Bend?, Quarterly Journal Of Political Science 1(2): Supp. Frederick Boehmke, Sean Gailmard, and John Patty Business as Usual. Draft, UC Berkeley. Session 15 Interacting Principals Req. Randall Calvert, Mathew D. McCubbins, and Barry R. Weingast A Theory of Political Control and Agency Discretion. American Journal of Political Science 33(3): Req. B. Dan Wood and Richard Waterman The Dynamics of Political Control of the Bureaucracy. American Political Science Review 85(3): Req. Craig Volden A Formal Model of the Politics of Delegation in a Separation of Powers System. American Journal of Political Science 46(1): Req. Nolan McCarty The Appointments Dilemma. American Journal of Political Science 48(3): Req. Sean Gailmard, Multiple Principals and Oversight of Bureaucratic Policy-Making. Draft, UC Berkeley. Supp. John Scholz, Jim Twombly, and Barbara Headrick Street-Level Political Controls over Federal Bureaucracy. American Political Science Review 85(3): Supp. Andrew Whitford The Pursuit of Political Control by Multiple Principals. Journal of Politics 67(1).